I'm cleaning up my blog drafts and ran across this from a month or so ago! Here it is!

I haven't blogged for a very long while. I miss it! Ever since I purchases a Droid, I've madly typed everything with my thumbs... and somehow blogging just doesn't seem to fit that mode. Not that I don't write incessantly with my thumbs anyway on Facebook. Lol.

Some highlights since I last posted:

Lucy has started dance class and art. She's so excited by it, and such a little firecracker. She's not afraid, she's confident. I love it. We have lots of time together now that both of the boys are in school. She's always making something, pretending something usually about babies or animals. Even her ghost pretends are populated by baby ghosts.

Andy is enjoying school at Hubbell. He's been learning all kinds of things about the world. That is one thing I like about his IB school, the emphasis on other cultures. That's what we love at home and something we learned at home too, and he has a huge interest in that. I have no doubt that he will have a lot of wanderlust as a young man and will want adventure. It's nice to awaken that now. He is often found playing with a neighbor girl. They had a tree fort for awhile and now an inside fort at her house with private stashes of precious things like minerals, reproductions of historic maps and old money. They play with their bows and arrows and satchels all the time. I love that he has a strong playmate that shares his passions of constant movement, pretend play, and that they are both in second grade at the same school. Andy has also been going to Cub Scouts and enjoying that as well.

Noah is attending Smouse. This last week he started an intensive bathroom program at home and has had quite a bit of success with that. We'd like to become as independent as possible so that we can move to another state (possibly) that doesn't have as good of disability services. Learning how to eat by mouth was step one. Learning bathroom skill is step two. From there, we will have a lot of independence I think. Although Noah will probably need constant help and supervision long term. He got to go to a Bob Dylan concert with Scott and me, which he loved. He's still getting equestrian therapy and music therapy, and through that has been learning more speech.

Scott and I are up in the air on so many things. We'd like to move. We are eager to escape winter, or so we think right now. We've outgrown our house in so many ways with one bathroom, a small bedroom for the boys (Andy gets his head stepped on about once a week), we can't all eat in the kitchen now because we've outgrown that, and our clothes (we don't even have that many) are bursting the seams of closets. I'm thankful we have the attic for overflow, but having a more roomy house would be nice and particularly a new school for Noah as we've been constantly butting heads with the DMPS to get even the slightest service that he needs from the beginning. I believe that the people at Smouse want what is best, but the system is not willing or able to provide what is needed.

There is no other solution for him other than 1. moving or 2. me homeschooling him again by myself. And really 2 was so draining emotionally and isolating, while simultaneously kept me from important things like, caring for my own health, cooking dinner for my family, having relationships, and just being Noah's mom. Maybe I suck as a person and should be able to do all of that, but I find it difficult. That leaves us with moving as an option. Or staying and being at odds constantly I guess.

I am so very thankful for the Homestead which has been there through everything, supporting him, aiming higher, listening and encouraging. They are a gem in our community and if they ran a school (that I could afford), I would send Noah there in a heartbeat.

So, most likely we will be putting our house on the market while simultaneously trying to continue to make it work here. I can't imagine if I actually needed to work and deal with all of this, and yet probably most of the parents at Noah's school are in that position and simply don't have the time to fight.

But this was supposed to be a cheery post. It was until Noah's school issues came up, as always the rest of our life is wonderful and Noah's school situation is sucky enough for all of us.

Anyway, I'm trying to think in a positive way, looking at all of this as a big adventure. And while adventures are not always fun in all ways, there are some wonderful things ahead.